British Rail Class 52 - Names and Numbers

Names and Numbers

While the first Western was under construction, proposals for livery and names were prepared by the BR design panel. The D1000 series locomotives were to be named after famous West of England place names; the illustration from the portfolio shows D1000 bearing the name Cheddar Gorge. This trend was not followed in production, however and the Westerns were named with general heraldic and regimental terms prefixed with the word "Western" as per the following table:

D1029 was originally named Western Legionaire, but renamed Western Legionnaire in 1969, the nameplate being cut to allow the additional letter to be inserted.

Although designated Class 52 under the TOPS scheme, no Western ever carried its "52 0xx" TOPS number. As withdrawal was already planned when the TOPS numbering scheme was introduced and because of the cast number plates, it was not considered cost effective to renumber the locomotives. Some class members did run with the "D" of their number painted over - TOPS classification removed the need for locomotives to indicate their energy type in the running number (D = Diesel, E = Electric), rather grouping locomotives into relevant class number ranges based on power output and energy type combined (this convention has become somewhat blurred in recent years), 01 to 69 being diesel, 70 to 97 electric, and 98 all steam types.

When the display of destination headcodes/reporting numbers on the front of trains was dropped in 1976, the instruction was given for them all to be set to "0000". On many Westerns, the headcode was set to display the loco's number in contravention of this directive and most surviving members of the class ran like this until they were scrapped. If used for routeing, such reporting numbers would be interpreted as a passenger express terminating on the Southern Region.